


Triage

by Gray_Days



Series: DC Prompt Fills [3]
Category: DC Animated Universe, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
Genre: Autocracy: Rules for Survival, Earth-3, Gen, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9907982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Days/pseuds/Gray_Days
Summary: There is a certain kind of person who never puts on their own oxygen mask first. That's sort of the point of heroes.(It's a problem.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a prompt on tumblr: [Lex and the Jester + subtle kindnesses.](http://metatextuality.tumblr.com/post/157466787588/prompt-from-twitter-d-lex-and-the-jester-from)
> 
> Mercy Graves's mirror-universe counterpart is named Grace Cooper. This is an even worse joke than the name "Mercy Graves".

The things you learned, to save your soul and your sanity under the dictatorial regime of the Crime Syndicate, were these:

You can’t do everything. You can’t spend all your time fighting. You treasure your allies and the fact that it’s still possible to trust. You never break necessary security protocols, but you find situations where it’s safe to let your guard down. You appreciate each moment of respite before getting back up and going back to work. You remember that you can’t win all the time — not even _most_ of the time — but every small victory is a strike back against the encroaching darkness, a reduction in the cumulative mass of suffering in the world.

At least Metropolis wasn’t Gotham, whose Owlman ruled with an iron fist, whose police and city bureaucracy were a thin layer of gilding over the clockwork operations of his Court. At least Metropolis was still largely permitted the appearance of independence, as long as Ultraman stayed happy. The first amendment might as well be a joke at this point, but at least the majority of the populace felt safe in the knowledge that they could go about their daily lives without threat.

(Yes, Lex was still bitter. Lex wouldn’t ever _not_ be bitter, barring if by some chance he managed to outlive every member of the Syndicate for long enough that the memories finally faded.)

His early collaborations with the Jester had been cryptic, limited by necessity: it wasn’t safe to voice dissent aloud in Metropolis, but the Owl was a detective, tracking movements and electronic communications so that the best way to organise against him was in local networks and hidden gatherings, key phrases whispered in passing and resources handed off at drop sites or via sleight of hand. Lex was a public figure, easy to find, outwardly blameless but with motive obvious to anyone who’d seen Ultraman take both his city and his dignity away in one fell swoop; the Jester was a guerilla, practically more archetype than person, appearing one moment as a laughing wrench in the works and then disappearing again for days or weeks at a time. So their collaboration was wordless at first, hands-off — an unlabeled kryptonite statuette shipped to Lex’s office, LexCorp facilities left unsecured and prototype shipments leaked, trains robbed as they passed through Gotham. After Shock Jock recovered from the assassination attempt that had transformed her into something beyond mortal flesh, her work in establishing secure communications with Enigma had been invaluable to the cause.

Lex had expected to find a friend in the Jester, in the idiomatic sense of an ally of like mind. He hadn’t expected to gain an actual _friend_. He didn’t exactly have many. Too married to his work, and too ready to believe the best of anyone who appeared to honestly enjoy his company. But J, ironically, kept him sane. Lex had watched his own mental health spiral downwards with a sort of morbid academic detachment over the past few years, as he’d driven himself into the ground trying to figure out how to save the world in enforced isolation, exiling himself from society for everyone else’s safety. He wasn’t used to someone checking in on him just because they cared, or saying something just because they thought it would make him laugh. Grace cared about his well-being, obviously, but he paid her handsomely to do so. It was different.

And of course, with the Jester and Enigma had come the rest of Gotham’s resistance and their contacts throughout the country, a comforting reminder that he was never truly as alone in spirit as he was in person and that their ideals would live on unless the Syndicate somehow tracked down and killed each and every person who ever spoke up against them —

Lex had never met his collaborators face-to-face, and wouldn’t be able to until he could safely free himself and those who relied on him from Ultraman’s grip. But the prospect was one more thing to keep him going — one more thing to keep him fighting for a day when they’d all finally be free from fear.


End file.
